


(I Dream of) Frozen Embers

by ashesandflame



Series: Tales of Blood and Water (SKZ Dark Fairy Tales) [1]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Assisted Suicide, But like that's just how cinderella went, Character Death, Cinderella Elements, Dark, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Retellings, Falling In Love, How did I forget, I don't wanna give too much away dammit, Jeongin seems VERY dark, M/M, Magical Violence, Male Cinderella, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Partners to Lovers, Parts of this are just so questionable, Romance, Royalty, Secrets, Slow Burn, Slow Dancing, Snow Queen Elements, Spells & Enchantments, Tags Contain Spoilers, Violence, and that's because he is, in a way? - Freeform, of a character that is never present, welcome to abusive stepfamilies, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:13:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28135968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashesandflame/pseuds/ashesandflame
Summary: The woman who had singlehandedly destroyed his kingdom had gotten away, but her son remained. In fact, that very same son was waltzing into his ballroom, clad in red and gold as if the icy interior repulsed him.It seemed Minho's felled gods were smiling upon him. What better opportunity to exact revenge on the woman who destroyed his life than to destroy hers?Oh, if only it had been so simple. If only his pebble of a heart had stayed quiet.If only loving the prince of cinder and flames hadn't hurt so much.
Relationships: Lee Minho | Lee Know/Yang Jeongin | I.N
Series: Tales of Blood and Water (SKZ Dark Fairy Tales) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993489
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. The Start

**Author's Note:**

> . . . If you're on the Stray Kids tag and you keep seeing my name pop up, I am _so sorry_ ;-;

“Crois-tu que la flamme de l’âme puisse périr dans les flammes du bucher?”  
\- Hans Christian Andersen, _The Snow Queen_

“A dream is a wish your heart makes.”  
― Charles Perrault, _Cinderella_

“Bien des gens reçurent de cette funeste poussière dans l'œil. Une fois là, elle y restait, et les gens voyaient tout en mal, tout en laid, et tout à l’envers.”  
\- Hans Christian Andersen, _The Snow Queen_

“She could not bear the good qualities of this pretty girl, and the less because they made her own daughters appear the more odious.” – Charles Perrault, _Cinderella_


	2. Prologue

There had been a time when looking into a mirror was a privilege. When seeing his skin clean of soot and dust would have been a luxury. A time when he’d been nothing but shadows and cinder. An impression of a woman’s cruelty.

Anger had eaten him alive, burning and leaving his lungs in puffs of smoke. The death of his father only fueled that fire.

Meeting a king of ice and snow taught him how best to use it.

He thought the anger would die here. That, if he presented himself as nothing more than fury wrapped up in blood-red robes and a feathered mask, the king would snuff him out. Ease the ache left behind by flame.

Jeongin sat here, now, staring down his reflection that truly looked nothing like him at all, and thought how spectacularly Minho had both failed and succeeded.

His hair, once blacker than twilight, was a purer white than frost, nearly the same hue as his pallor; his lips looked so much like freshly drawn blood that he worried, sometimes, that his anxious biting was leaving his mouth in tatters. Glitter sat near his eyes, perfect replicas of the embers he’d seen paint the sky, all those years ago.

He looked behind him, at the empty bed which seemed perpetually fitted to his love’s boy. Not being able to see him there, to call out with a lick of flame and get a brush of ice in return . . .

He turned back to the armoire before him, shaky hand touching the crown circling his head. Diamonds and icicles and silver. Weightier than it had any right to be.

“I didn’t mean to take this from you . . .”

But he had. The Snow King was no more.

Jeongin couldn’t get through the day without wanting to burn the castle down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [curious cat!](https://curiouscat.qa/ahgaslayy)
> 
> [twitter!](https://twitter.com/svnsmayday)


	3. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> save me it's 1am and i wanted to read through this more thoroughly for typos but I also really want to FINALLY get out something for this fic, so here you go 

Killing them would be so easy. He could make a run for it; He knew the layout of this house better than they could have ever hoped to. They’d never set foot in the market. He’d lose the police in a matter of hours.

He slid the poker out from its home next to the fireplace. Three swipes, and the world would be rid of their cawing, shrill voices. Three swipes, and he may finally know what it meant to be free.

Three swipes, and he’d become a criminal. Freedom didn’t exist behind prison bars.

 _Some of it does_ , his heart whispered, _and freedom from_ them _is the only sort that matters._

Jeongin pushed against the door, listening to the tittering voices of his stepfamily. Readjusting his grip on the poker, he considered a handful of things—their disorientation, their anger, their screams. None of those things was pleasant, but they were all necessary.

What would his father think, if he saw his little boy planning the murder of his wife and daughters? He’d always seen to it that his son understood the value of kindness, the cruciality of looking at the bright spots in your life instead of the dark ones.

But his father had not been around to watch as his only son was reduced to nothing but an entertaining servant for the family he’d chosen to make himself a part of.

“Jaengin! I asked for that tea _hours_ ago!”

His tightened his grip on the poker. She couldn’t demand tea from him with her throat cut open. They couldn’t push him to his knees and demand he scrub the floors if he spilled their guts on the floor first.

 _You’ll become an outlaw_ , he told himself. _Freedom_ cannot be yours _if you lock yourself up in a different cage._

His wretch of a stepsister had not, in fact, asked for tea _hours ago_. Her words had been “A tea would go swimmingly with the _éclairs_ , don’t you think?” Nothing more, nothing less, and certainly nothing directed at Jeongin himself.

But, of course, that did not matter; if his stepsister had indicated she wanted tea, it should have been steaming in her hands before she finished speaking.

 _Three swipes._ It would be so easy. Even as he walked back towards the fireplace, shivering at its warmth, he adjusted the plan; enter from the south doors, leave the poker in the women’s blind spot as he served the tea, catch them off guard.

Jeongin slid the poker back into its holder and made for the kitchens. Freedom would not be his today.

o.O.o

The only thing Jeongin had left of his mother was a dead flower. It was . . . nice, as far as dried flowers went. Sad-looking, if anything. His father had explained to him that it belonged to her wedding bouquet—a token of remembrance for the happiest day of her life.

A life that wouldn’t last much longer, it seemed.

The thing about happiness was that it was about as permanent as ink in water. You saw it, felt it, for a moment as it dipped its tendrils into the surface, before it slowly became part of its surroundings. Mundane. Useless. Adding more ink helped, certainly, but add too much and you’re no longer able to tell it was water in the first place.

His mother had enjoyed happiness a bit too much. Had let it ruin her before anyone noticed she needed help. Jeongin had watched, helpless, as happiness and life began to bleed together for his mother, until one day the water had been spilled, suddenly red instead of navy, all over the floor of his mother’s study. He still didn’t know how she had managed it; even her letter opener had been taken from the room a few weeks prior to her death.

His father had had her cremated. Said that she had always burned so brightly. Didn’t want her flames to become smothered by earth and time. Then, later that month, he said he would lace her ashes into the soil in their yard and grow a tree in her name, _for only the strongest of fauna can grow from the ashes._ He had always been a romantic, though Jeongin had been more than willing to follow through with the plan. He may not have been totally familiar with the woman his mother had become in the weeks before her death, but he had missed her all the same. He adored the idea of having some part of her present in some way. Needed it, almost, with how untethered he felt in her absence.

Then his father left for a business trip, and never returned.

Jeongin was left alone as he finally learned the true nature of those who had come to stay in his home.

The tree had been uprooted the moment his stepmother had been giver ownership of his home. Jeongin did not like to remember how he reacted to the news, doing his best to push down his crystal-clear recollection of it until it became muddled and uncertain.

It would never lose its clarity. Of that, he was certain. But he could pretend. For his own sake, to keep himself alive and not torn to shreds by the trio of vultures he now called family, he would have to pretend.

“Jaengin!”

“That’s not my name,” he whispered to the ceiling of his attic. “That’s not my name, that’s not my name, _that’s not my name._ ”

“JAENGIN!”

Her voice was awful. All three voices were. He could see them now, circling above him, not waiting for his heart to stop before they drove into his chest and tore flesh from bone.

Perhaps his mother had had the right idea.

He pinched himself for even thinking it. _You saw what that did to Father_ , he thought. _No one should have to watch someone devolve the way Mother had._

But there was no one left to care for Jeongin, let alone the way his father had his mother.

When his door burst open to reveal one of the vultures, he wondered when she had lost her beak and dirt-smeared wings. _You aren’t ugly enough. People might think you’re kind, with a face like that._

How rotten he’d become.

“You worthless lowlife,” she spat, trudging through his room like one would a field of waist-high grass. “When you’re called you are expected to _respond_.”

Rising up out of his bed was more of a precautionary measure than an acquiescence, because no matter how much he despised her and the rest of her hell-born family, nothing was worth the treatment he had received four years ago.

The loathing in her eyes only grew as he came to stand in front of her, the top of his head soaring inches above hers. He was only shorter than his stepmother, the lines of his body elegant in a way that did not need aid from corsets or illusionary makeup. He had never held such contempt for cosmetics or fashion before, but seeing the vanity of his stepfamily had truly turned him off the whole idea.

Still, a little voice in his head would not be so easily quieted. _You could dawn one of their dresses and make fools of them_.

No, Jeongin thought, he would only make a fool of himself. Though that did not stop him from entertaining the thought for just as moment longer. He certainly wouldn’t suffer for trying if he were alone.

And therein lay the problem: being _alone_. It was a luxury he would never experience again, for as long as he lived.

When his stepsister slapped him, he was ready for it. Because he had been distracted. Because, for a second, his own head had mattered more than her, and she was supposed to be the most important thing at all times.

His cheek burned. Left him biting back a gasp that would further weaken his resolve.

“I miss when you screamed.”

So did he, for a wholly different reason.

“I need you to go to the market,” said his stepsister, rather predictably. “There’s a stall that sells only the finest fabric, but they refuse service more often than they take it. Mother went once, and the bastard wouldn’t so much as look at her.”

_What makes you think he’ll take me?_

“And,” she continued, “I figure if he finally snaps, best to let you take the brunt of his anger.”

“If I die, this house falls apart.”

It was already doing just that; the roof was disgusting, the lawn yellowed and untrimmed. The window creaked as wind pushed against it, both glass and breeze agreeing with him. Once, he had been part of the wealthiest, most respected household in the country. Now they were the laughingstock of everyone who had once called them friends.

And all because his stepmother was a demon’s stillborn warmed over.

His stepsister wasn’t pleased with him—though, really, _that_ was nothing new—and she showed him just how deep her displeasure went by spitting on his bed. His stomach squeezed at the sight, and suddenly every bit of his body burned. It would take him nothing to bash her skull against the footboard.

_Not worth it._

_Isn’t it?_

“Here I was, thinking Mother had done a perfectly good job of reminding you where you belong. So allow _me_ to remind you.”

His stepsister reached behind him, used her barely-manicured nails to tear off the section of his sheets she’d soiled, and wiped it off on his cheek.

Jeongin shook with the effort not to skin her alive.

The window tore open a moment later, sending his stepsister shrieking and cowering. Immediately the late-autumn chill permeated the air, and Jeongin cursed himself for his forgetfulness; he had forgotten to reinforce the lock.

He didn’t listen to her as she berated him for this or that; he only collected his satchel and promised to return with the shopkeeper’s finest wares before the sun set.

_You could walk away. Never return. Spare yourself._

But . . . this was still _his_ home. It was his father and mother’s. He kept his head down because he wanted to care for this house without any real hinderance. He wanted to keep his parents alive, because his stepfamily was a collection of murderers who wanted nothing more than to forever ruin his family.

As he stepped out the side doors and made for the gates, he looked back at the manor that had once flourished. He saw his stepfamily milling around in the parlor and felt himself once more flush in rage. _I hate you,_ he thought, as loudly as he could. _I hate you as much as any one person can hate anything_.

It didn’t do much to ease the fire inside him. He simply burned brighter at being able to silently loathe them.

At least it was something.

o.O.o

The market made him feel more like a person, less like a ball of undiminished rage, because people regarded him with a neutral gaze or small smile. He was dressed in rags, and no one knew that he was the son of people who had, at one point, mattered.

Did people miss them, his parents? They had been friendly, if a little distant as his mother descended into what most would classify as madness. Surely some would notice and be disturbed by their absence.

Well. If his parents had had visitors, mourners, he would have never heard of them. He was about as significant as the mice that kept him company in the cellars and attic.

Speaking of, he would have to buy them some seeds or fruit. They were good enough to him that he didn’t want them to die.

As Jeongin ventured deeper into the market, he felt a buzz in the air. Everyone was chattering, whispering, bouncing on the balls of their feet. While not uncommon, it was the sheer intensity of the energy that had him pausing and listening.

“Oh, do you really think he’ll choose some peasant girl?”

“They said he was looking for a wife, nothing about her status!”

“I’ll turn magenta before the _Snow King_ takes a bride from outside Glacean borders.”

Jeongin very nearly tripped over his own feet. The _Snow King?_ No one would be so stupid as to offer themself as his spouse. His rule was just, which made him amendable to leaders and citizens alike, but that did not change the fact that he turned every criminal who prostrated themself before him into an ice sculpture.

Or so the story went.

Jeongin didn’t have time for fairy tales or romance-starved kings; he only had to get the fabric from the stall at the centre of the market and kill time before he went back to his prison. Even so . . . he was intrigued, in a distant sort of way. Certainly, the Snow King had a reputation for being a merciless sadist, but didn’t the extreme nature of that rumour indicate a falsehood?

 _You live with the worst of the worst,_ said the voice in his head. _Surely you know there are those who are simply irredeemable._

Jeongin silenced his thoughts and made for the textiles stall.

It was unassuming to say the least; not that the fabrics themselves were not breathtaking, because even Jeongin, as someone who became intimately familiar with his stepfamily’s garb in the journey to repair them, knew that the fabrics before him were of a most impressive make. One was even winking at him from the corner of his vision, practically glowing with its rich hue. No, what had him surprised was the normality of it all. His stepsister had made it seem as if finding the stall would be a task and acquiring a roll of fabric nigh impossible.

But. The man in charge of the stall merely sat there, hands on his lap, eagerly peering up at Jeongin.

“Well?”

“I . . . have been told that your wares are elusive.”

“Only to those who make themselves scarce.”

“Look,” Jeongin sighed, “I don’t have time for riddles. Will you let me buy some fabric off you or not?”

A hand wrapped around his hand and he wanted to scream, only stopped by overwhelming confusion as he watched the man peer at his hands.

“You sew.”

“I do.”

The merchant looked up at him, seven different kinds of coy and all of them disconcerting. “Do you _create_ or _mend?”_

Slowly Jeongin’s patience slipped away, but genuine curiosity was quick to fill in its empty spaces. “Is one worth less than the other?”

“You tell me.”

“They go hand in hand,” Jeongin said deliberately. “One can only mend that which has been created, but the promise of mending gives clothing more value. The promise of longevity and individuality.”

Sewing had been the one skill he’d learned from his mother. _A little piece of you is in every stitch,_ his mother had told him. _Every prick of your finger and blister on your thumb means something. Look at that, my love, and tell me that you do not feel a little bit of yourself in it._

Sometimes, Jeongin would let himself bleed onto the darker fabrics of his stepfamily’s clothes. _I own this. Eventually, I’ll own you. I’ll own you, and then I’ll have the right to break you like you’ve broken my family_.

His father had always preached kindness. His mother had ensured he was learned in patience.

His mother’s lessons began carrying more weight.

“Have I passed your test?”

The merchant grinned. “You passed the moment I saw you.”

Jeongin pointed to the fabric that had waved at him upon his arrival. “Then that’s my first purchase.”

_Mine. My own. No one else’s. They can’t touch it._

More people chattered behind him, all of them honed in on the announcement of the Snow King’s marriage. They could talk themselves blue for all he cared, because marriage was nothing but an exchange of agency from your hands to those of someone else. Jeongin hoped whoever was gifted that rotten title of King- or Queen-Regent was content to lose their ownership of their person, because that was the future that awaited them.

But who was he to judge? All he had to his name was a roll of fabric and years worth of pain with no one with whom to share it.

It wasn’t enough. Deep in his darkened heart, he knew that.

But at least it was something. And it was that something that would carry him through the incoming winter, into the next spring, until he simply withered away in both body and soul.

What an awful little life he led. And kindness had helped him with none of it. His father had done his best, but Jeongin could not buy fabric with kindness, nor could he use it to protect himself from his stepfamily’s spite. He couldn’t hold kindness, lay claim to it. Kindness was useless


End file.
